Every year, immigrants\nin search of better lives for themselves and their families make the effort to follow\nthe proper procedures to enter the United States. Many contribute their fair\nshare to society. However, it is neither fair to them nor to the American\npeople when politicians attempt to place illegal aliens on equal footing as\nthose coming here lawfully. That is exactly what Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Castro, the brother of Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro who is pushing<\/a> to decriminalize illegal immigration, introduced legislation earlier this month to remove the terms \u201cillegal\u201d and \u201cillegal alien\u201d from immigration laws passed by the federal government. In Orwellian fashion, his legislation aims to replace the two terms with \u201cforeign national\u201d and \u201cundocumented foreign national.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe words \u2018alien\u2019 and \u2018illegal alien\u2019 work to demonize and dehumanize the migrant community,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cThey should have no place in our government\u2019s description of human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While this legislation is unlikely to be enacted by Congress anytime soon, it still highlights the push by open-borders activists and politicians to use a linguistic sleight of hand to alter public discourse surrounding the sometimes controversial issue of immigration. The purpose of altering this language is to \u201ctransform public perception on the [illegal immigration]issue by removing any indication that illegal aliens are engaged in unlawful activity,\u201d according<\/a> to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n For decades, open-borders activists successfully lobbied mainstream media outlets to drop the terms \u201cillegal alien\u201d and \u201cillegal immigrant\u201d and pick up the more sanitized term \u201cundocumented immigrant.\u201d In 2013, the Associated Press buckled under pressure and revised<\/a> its guidelines so that journalists would no longer refer to anyone as \u201cillegal.\u201d Considering that most publications follow the AP Stylebook<\/em>, a majority followed suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n